


Silhouette

by Atlanova



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: And the love confession never happened, Bleeding, Descriptions of gunshot wounds, F/M, Gunshot Wounds, It’s kinda really sad, Molly Hooper Appreciation, Moriarty is not dead, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper Friendship, Sherlock has some realisations, Sherlock is a Mess, Some Swearing, i guess, whoops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:33:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29947977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlanova/pseuds/Atlanova
Summary: Sherlock rubs a hand over his faint stubble. He absently drags it up his face and through his hair, smearing blood through the damp, coarse curls. He gives into the temptation to close his eyes.Anything that matters, for one who matters the most.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper
Comments: 15
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> From what I can remember, this fic sprouted from the prompt:
> 
> **imagine one half of your otp crying and desperately clutching the other person as they slowly bleed out from a wound [of some sort], pleading with them not to close their eyes**

Sherlock is sure he should be feeling pain about any second now. He’s been shot before; he knows exactly what it feels like.

But those few milliseconds — the ones in which the world stops turning, every heart stops beating, and every lung ceases breathing — seem to stretch to full seconds. Sherlock knows that in a situation like this, each second that passes in the sinister calm of the atmosphere feels like the equivalent of a lifetime. 

Sherlock’s limbs are rigid and frozen, calling attention to his tall and lanky frame. The fear which he despises has paralyzed him; the detective shot once is terrified of another bullet ripping a ferocious hole inside of him.

He doesn’t notice the familiar sensation of the warm blood pouring from the wound and sticking his white suit shirt to his skin. 

There isn't one.

And he doesn’t _feel_ the agony.

In fact, Sherlock Holmes feels nothing.

His ears still ring from the piercing echo of the bullet being propelled from the barrel. The sound ricochets around the rundown building’s damp walls. 

Sherlock’s limbs come to as the man with the gun sprints into the looming shadows, his footsteps fading into quiet.

There should be silence, now. Except, there isn’t.

A loud groan of pain is shrieked from somewhere behind him. Sherlock frowns and whips around, his eyes immediately focusing on the distance ahead. On the dusty and cold floor of the warehouse lay a body. Squirming. Crying. Swearing. 

Taking a few cautious steps towards this person, Sherlock squints. The darkness plays hell with his sight, but he can just about make out strands of a long brown ponytail bestrewn on the floor. A pale green khaki jacket wrapped around their body for the warmth against the November cold. 

Panic rises through his veins as he stares, wide-eyed. _“Molly?”_

A groan and a cry in return. 

Sherlock mentally slaps himself free from the shock and rushes over to her. Carefully, he turns her over and attempts to take in the situation. Molly’s light grey sweater is partially soaked with a dark crimson substance. Her skin is turning into a sickly pale, and tears stream down her face. 

He presses his hand to her side to stem the bleeding, and he closes his eyes tight at the sensation. He would hardly care if this was his own blood trickling through the gaps in his fingers. But this is Molly’s blood. His fault. _Her_ agony. 

_Think, for fuck sake. Staunch the wound. Call for help._

_Molly. Hooper. Needs. Help._

His chest feels tight as he tugs at his scarf with his free hand. He rushes to place the navy material to Molly’s wound. He loathes that it causes her more pain but knows that he must press hard to stem as much bleeding as he can. 

Sherlock then one-handedly takes his phone from his pocket. In the panic and rush of the situation, it slips from his grasp and clatters to the floor. He sighs tightly and retrieves it, before dialling the ambulance service. 

With the necessities taken care of, Sherlock moves his own gaze to Molly’s. He’s seen it enough to know that there is fear in her eyes. An earth-shattering fear swimming in those warm brown hues.

He'd felt it enough to sense its silhouette, after all, and he can feel it now.

Sherlock swallows thickly and Molly's name falls from his lips in a constricted whisper.

The pathologist squirms as her hand subconsciously lifts to cover the wound, only to feel Sherlock’s own hand already there, grasped around some kind of material. She cries out as the agony burns inside, seemingly becoming more unbearable by the second. Forcing her eyes to open, her gaze automatically finds Sherlock. He looks scared. 

“Molly, what …" he begins in a confused whisper, " … what are you doing here?”

She inhales a sharp wince, trying to find the ability to speak. “I overheard J-John. Said y-you were in … danger.”

He frowns. “I’m always chasing criminals. John should have known I’d have been fine." Sherlock's focus slowly and involuntarily saunters to the wound. Droplets and smears of Molly's blood are marking the skin of his clenched fist. His eyes are fixated there as the next few words fall from his mouth. "And so should you."

Molly almost rolls her eyes but instead chooses to groan in frustration, not liking the way her head aches a burning ache. “Not t-true,” she whispers. “You. Shot. Not _fine_.”

He shakes his head as his gaze flickers around her pained expression. “Except, I wasn’t the one who was shot,” he says, his tone as heavy as led.

“Moriarty’s … men.” Molly winces, closing her eyes tight again. “John thinks. And M-Mycroft."

Sherlock’s mind races as he keeps the pressure on the scarf. _Moriarty_? Of course. Perhaps there’s another network he needs to go and dismantle, somewhere out there. But there’s something else pressing at the forefront of his mind, almost dancing on the tip of his tongue—"

_The one who mattered the most. Not John. Not Mrs Hudson. Not Lestrade. The one who slipped past Moriarty's notice._

“Why were you shot?” 

Molly manages to smile up at him. It’s incredibly sad and brief, but his steel blue eyes catch it nonetheless. “Mind games. Probably wanted to … hurt you,” she hisses through the pain. She really should stop talking and rest. _"If she could just let her eyelids fall shut one last time._ “Make you f-feel ... emotional-”

“Pain,” Sherlock finishes for her in an almost hesitant whisper. “The man probably had Moriarty in an earpiece. I was the intended target. Until you showed up,” he says. “Moriarty knows that you matter. Well, he does now, anyway. He probably thought he’d have a bit of fun, because he knows that this would not only hurt you - which was probably a bonus sense of vengeance for him, as you helped me fall - but he knew that it would hurt me, too, and—"

Sherlock stops rambling. He catches Molly’s eyelids fluttering closed. Her skin is now as white as a sheet. He flickers a panicked gaze to the wound. More blood seeps over his hand. 

“No, no, no, _no!_ ” he hisses, taking his free hand to the side of her face. “Molly! _Molly,_ stay with me. Don’t fall asleep,” the words tumble from his mouth in an alarmed mumble. He gently rubs his thumb underneath her eye, and her eyelid opens ever so slightly. A relieved smile twitches his lips. “Yes! Yes, that’s it,” he encourages. “Talk to me. You need to stay conscious. What’s your surname? Tell me that,” comes the scared plead. 

Her eyelids close and she humms in response to his question. Sherlock is finding it increasingly arduous to think straight through the worry, but he shakes his head. He has to think. _Molly’s always garrulous. I need to talk to her. Absolute nonsense. Anything to keep her awake._

Sherlock’s concerned focus can’t seem to take itself from her face. Her eyes close tight, her jaw tenses, in so much pain. _So much pain. She’s in so much pain._

Staring helplessly down at the pale face of Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes opens his mouth to say something — fuck, anything. 

_Anything that matters, for one who matters the most._

____________________

Molly's head feels muzzy, almost like it's full of bubble wrap. Everything that she knows should be in her skull — the grey and white soft tissue matter, non-neurel cells, blood cells, and the water — all feel dissolved and disintegrated. As if her head is empty. Her conscious reasoning and movements are becoming slower, now. The woozy sensation feels twisted and warped in her head. And … she wants to listen to whatever Sherlock is saying. She … she _does_.

_“Right. Crap. When you’re … hospital … while, I’m going … tell you … stupid thing you’ve done. And John. For fuck’s sake, why … even in … morgue for you to hear him? I’ll tell him …. He should know better …"_

Sherlock's words spin around the room, or her head … or _inside her head?_ Bouncing off the walls; almost like a hand pressed to her sweaty forehead; echoing around her skull.

_"If he were here, right now, do you know … he would say, Molly? He’d say ‘I told you you’re picking up … Molly’s swearing'."_

She thinks she hears the strangely distinct sound of a laugh. It sounds sad. Or perhaps she's imagining it. 

_“As … turns out, it’s …. quite stress-relieving. But I won’t let him … the satisfaction of ‘I told you so’.”_

___________________

Sherlock sees her eyelids flicker open at that comment. He almost swears that there’s a tiny hint of a smile on her face. A sorrowed kind of smile twists at his own lips. “I know this hurts, Molly. I do. I’ve been shot before. You came to me in my mind palace. You told me what to do. I relied on you to keep me alive. I always have,” he whispers.

All Sherlock knows is that he has to say something. He doesn’t necessarily mean for it to be the raw truth.

“But you know that, don’t you? I’ve always relied on you for things. I did a lot of thinking while I was dismantling Moriarty's web. I realised that I saw you as a means only for assistance for cases. I never properly saw you. Not like you always saw me. Not until I had to fake my own suicide, anyway. Because then, I knew I could trust you. I knew that …” he trails off, realising that she is fighting so hard to keep her eyes open.

Sherlock swallows hard. What he would give to have all of her pain so she doesn't have to endure it. His mind cannot begin to fathom the disappointment, because he knows that it would be improbable.

He squeezes her limp hand, closing his eyes to continue. “I knew you wouldn’t tell anyone. But you … you put yourself at such great risk. Because if Moriarty ever found out that you made it all possible, you probably wouldn’t be lying here right now. But you are. Except, this time you're lethally bleeding. Because of me. Because you decided to be a hero again and you came after me,” he whispers. His helpless gaze flickers around her face, looking for a sign that she is still conscious. 

Her eyelids open. They’re dark with exhaustion, but open nonetheless. She gives him the briefest of smiles before it fades back into the weakness. She swallows back the pain as she waves her arm at him, attempting to touch his face. But she fails, as her arm aches and the dreadful pit of eneveration causes the limb to drop. Instead, it flails across his knees. 

Sherlock slowly slips his arm underneath her back and gently pulls her body up onto his lap, suddenly realising how uncomfortable the floor must be for her.

“How’s the pain?” he asks, his voice tinted with a strange tenderness, and a pang of hapless guilt. 

Molly winces as her head begins to thud. The pain from her back is numbing now that she lay across Sherlock’s lap, but the searing agony from her shot wound is thumping a terrifying torment of affliction. “I can’t ... “ she whispers breathlessly. 

“Yes, you can,” he insists, stealing a quick glance at the wound. It’s still seeping a lot of blood. The prospect of her death is one that is becoming very close, now. He feels his heart drop at the thought. He swallows. “Molly, you’re going to live. I promise." 

“Don’t … make promises you … c-can’t k-keep,” she says, her voice almost inaudible. But the words ring through Sherlock’s mind. 

“I’m not,” he insists. “Not this time.”

Molly almost manages to grunt, as if she doesn't believe him. She breathes deep through her nose and closes her eyes tight. "Says … w-who?"

"Me."

"Why?"

He smiles sadly down at her. "Because the ambulance should be between five and ten minutes away, now. And you're not unconscious yet."

Molly's eyelids falter as she squirms in agony, and she would have rolled off Sherlock's lap had he not caught her. 

______________ 

"You're not supposed … t-to be so f-fucking optimistic," she hisses at his last comment. 

Through a focus muddled with strange shapes, blurry spots and black smudges, she manages to catch Sherlock's expression as it deadpans. 

"I will be where you're concerned."

Molly groans and closes her eyes tight. She can feel the horrible sensation of her warm blood pouring what feels like rivers over her waist. She senses it on her thighs, too. "No. You … you were always …" 

Sherlock frowns.

"Arrogant," she clarifies in a moreorless silent whisper. " _Especially_ when it … c-ame to m-me. So rude … and ..."

"A rude person isn't a selfish person, Molly—"

"Didn't—" she wheezes quietly, "… let me f-finish. Y-you're also … a … a bastard."

"That's still not arrogance." Sherlock can't help but wince at all the blood surrounding them both. It's on his lap, forming in a dark crimson puddle underneath his knees, and there's a smeared puddle from where Molly used to lie. He moves one hand from holding her back, to the wound, holding down with significant pressure. 

"…. a b—bastard … _and_ arrogant," she whispers, tears created by the sheer agony of the wound slipping down her left cheek, dropping onto the cold floor in innocent tiny puddles. 

"Fine. I'm arrogant. Actually, John has accused me of being exactly that, too. Although, I could never see it."

"How … about that …" Molly humms sarcastically, her eyes wavering closed again, as her head automatically tilts to the side. The somewhat rough material of Sherlock's Belstaff coat touches her forehead for a brief moment. 

"I said _could_. Past tense, Molly," he says, trying not to let himself panic at her deteriorating state of consciousness. "Before I met John, I was always looking for cases, murders, homicides, that were all clever. They had to be clever and complex. I used to be oblivious to the grief afflicted onto family members of friends of the deceased. The deceased who I treated as if they were only …. things to entertain and challenge my intellect. You saw it, when I whipped the bodies."

"Why … did … meeting … J-John …. c-change that?" 

Sherlock shakes his head. "It wasn't when I met him, that my perspective changed. It was when he lost Mary to a gunshot wound." He inhales lightly and closes his eyes. If Molly is ever going to hear the truth, it should be now. "I saw John kneel beside Mary as she bled. I saw her fall still in his arms. I saw him loose the woman he—"

Sirens echo in the distance. They are a godsend to Sherlock's ears, but given Molly's current state, qualified medical help cannot guarantee that she will see tomorrow. A deduction he has been holding off - and he knows this, of course. 

"I saw John lose the woman he loved."

Beads of sweat stick to Molly's skin, and her breathing is becoming shallow. Sherlock doesn't even know if she is breathing at all, now. 

The sirens pierce the detective's ears and he catches a glimpse of the reflection of blue lights bouncing off the walls. But he cannot take his eyes off Molly. She is completely still. 

His heart hammers in his ribs, and he could swear that there is a palpitation. His own weariness weighs heavy on his shoulders. 

Sherlock rubs a hand over his faint stubble. He absently drags it up his face and through his hair, smearing blood through the damp curls. He gives into the temptation to close his eyes.

For reprieve. Seeing the darkness and nothing else.

"I'm sorry," Sherlock's hoarse whispers tries to find the dark, empty room. It doesn't even hear him; the broken words only reverberate back to his own for aching head, as his watery focus fixates on the paramedics as they wheel Molly to the ambulance.

They ask Sherlock if he's coming with them. 

But he can't hear them.

He falls to his knees, soaked in and surrounded by Molly's blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was scrolling through some old documents and found this fic that's sat untouched for over a year.
> 
> Honestly, I was gonna leave it, because I feel that it has some rough edges, but I just don't have time to re-draft it and I couldn't let it disappear into my documents again.
> 
> I hope you found some bittersweet enjoyment from it anyway. Please leave a comment to tell me your thoughts. I'd really appreciate it <3
> 
> [Oh - I do have like a quarter of a second chapter written somewhere, and I'd happily continue it if anyone would like?]


	2. Chapter Two

"Mate, you should go and get cleaned up." 

Sherlock frowns and stares at John as if he'd gone mad. "No. There's no time."

The blogger leans back in the rather uncomfortable blue chair, hands quietly slapping onto his lap. The smell of chemicals and the sounds of ringing phones and trollies is enough to drown out his other senses. 

"Time for what? You're gonna be waiting a while. She's … she's still in surgery."

"Time to think, John."

A greying eyebrow creases as he leans forward and sighs lightly. "Molly's blood is all over you. People are giving you-"

"Irritatingly sympathetic looks, I know," Sherlock bites back, teeth almost gritted.

"It's not sympathy this time, Sherlock," John corrects the interruption. "And, honestly, it's gonna start to smell." 

_"John!"_

The doctor crosses his arms and leans back. Concern welcomes itself into the pale blues of his eyes and he swallows heavily. He watches as Sherlock stands, lanky legs trembling slightly as he takes quickened steps along the breadth of the waiting room.

John grumbles lowly as his eyes cannot help but fixate on his friend.

There's a watery redness to Sherlock's eyes and a tiredness that lines his slightly older face. He can't seem to stop himself from scrubbing his shaky hands over it. All of this, John knows, is consistent with drug withdrawal. 

It's something he has had to coax Sherlock through more times than he has had the energy or the disciples to count, over the years. It's something John could recognize with his eyes closed. However, that's a somewhat weak reliability; Sherlock is loud and obnoxiously vocal when he is annoyed or stressed, and John's ears are still perfectly intact.

But that causes John to doubt his assumptions about Sherlock using again, as he continues to watch the exhausted man pace; there is no noise that he can hear. Sherlock is not shouting, loudly deducting, or firing insults at random objects in the flat. 

_Fuck_ , he isn't even talking. 

_No_. There's a silence that creeps into the crevasses of vulnerability. The static of Sherlock's tense stature creeps like a sullen mist and unnerves John. 

And then John realises — and, really, he should have known straightway — that everything he had blindly thought were withdrawal symptoms, are actually consistent with crying and being stressed to the tender and broken bone. 

John slaps his knees to his laps, his unconscious gaze flickering to the people who are giving Sherlock even weirder looks. He stands and gently grabs the crumbling detective's arm, leading him past the reception desks and through the large double glass doors. 

_______________

"John, what the _hell_. I need to be in there!" he stresses, flailing his arms, red-rimmed eyes widening. 

The doctor turns around, cheeks puffed out. "Sherlock—"

_"John—"_

"You were about to explode!" 

The detective visibly flinches at that, blinking slowly and shrinking back into his Belstaff. A whiff of a metallic substance reaches his nose and he shakes his head, pressing his hand to his temple.

"Look at you, Sherlock." 

The words were gently and kinder, fitting with John's infamous laid back demeanour. But there was a sharpness to his tone. It's always there in dire situations, what with having had to set Sherlock straight when he is being hysterical and completely illogical.

Sherlock blinks again and looks at himself, as John had told him to do. His eyes move down to his white suit shirt which has remnants of splattered blood all over it. There's a stickiness in his hair that Sherlock discovers when he runs his hand through the scruffy locks. 

"I'm not going anywhere, John," Sherlock whispers after what feels like hours. Cars swoosh by and the chilling breeze of November slices through Sherlock's shirt. He encloses his arms around his waist. 

Which is, in hindsight, a normal reaction to the coldness. John knows that. But the downwards spiral of Sherlock's eyes and the sharp inhalation, along with the way he seems to cower against a nearby stone wall, raises alarm bells.

Well, insecurity is something John has never seen Sherlock display. He may feel it, because, hell, everyone does, but for him to show it so clearly and without guard worries John.

"Why can't you just admit it, mate?"

An audible raspy sigh.

"Oh, John. Not this again, _please_." 

John edges closer to Sherlock, determination writing itself in his eyes. "It's tearing you apart, you bloody idiot!"

" _No._. Not that," he mutters, striding without much coordination at all to the railings overlooking the car park. "Yes, I'm worried. She's my friend. That's what people do, isn't it?"

"Friend?"

"Yes. _Friend._ ," he snaps, knuckles paling as he tightens his hands against the frigid metal. "But not-not … I don't …"

"You don't what, Sherlock?"

"I don't fucking _love_ Molly, John!"

His voice was dreary and hoarse. The dark curls of his hair fall backwards in the breeze, and a heavy sadness crashes into his watery eyes. It bears the weight of the world on the weak veins of his heart and he doesn't think it can hold the raw agony of hearing those words. 

John's jaw is tensing and his eyes are stern, now. Sherlock sways and closes his eyes, suppressing a pained groan, folding it back into the waving tides of November.

"You're scared of hurting her, is that it?" 

Sherlock snarls quietly, briefly glancing at John before refusing to face the world again and forcing his eyes closed. He trembles again, something akin to anger rising in his veins and threatening to erupt.

" _Sherlock_ ," John persists as his voice is nothing but a growl. It's a warning tone that the detective is very much used to. "Why don't you just—"

_"John!"_

Sherlock's bellow echoes through the car park and it pains John's ears so much that he winces. The vexation in his eyes is bulging, his chest is heaving and his jaw is so tense that it seems as if it is agonizing to endure. The November rain starts to splatter down in muffled droplets and Sherlock rubs at his eyes, letting out another suppressed groan. 

John watches his friend bend over and pinch his nose, and he swears by god that some kind of sob escapes him. And he'd feel remorse for seemingly being the one to cause whatever torturous pain Sherlock is feeling right now, but he can't; John has long known that if he isn't stern with Sherlock, that he will only continue to blindly bury whatever is choosing to run around his head without permission. Sometimes he had learnt it the hard way. 

Sherlock shakes his head and returns to the railings. He trails his arms over them and leans on the metal as if it is the only mortal thing capable of keeping him afloat in this raging war. His forehead graces the strange comfort of the cold metal as he sighs, and he stays there for what feels like hours. His shoulders are no longer tense and instead slump tiredly. The light cascade of rain touches his scalp, continuing to be that painful link to keep him aware of the outside world when he would rather just shut it out until Molly is awake.

Because she will wake, and Sherlock — no matter of his estranged and confused feelings — finds himself craving that moment and nothing else. Not anymore. All he needs is for Molly to wake. 

_"I saw John lose the woman he loved."_

He'd said that to her and he had known it to be the truth. But now, he finds himself refusing to go back down that route. He cannot let himself love Molly if this is where it leads.

He will not let himself believe that he loves her.

The pain of it burns a fire in Sherlock's head as he lets out another sob against the railings. He feels, asides the conflict of blinding pain, John's hand grip his shoulder in a steady reassurance.

John stays quiet to give his friend's mind a chance to replenish some kind of normality. Perhaps, in retrospect, he had been a little harsh, for he knows what Sherlock has been through because he had been through the same thing himself. He is all too aware of the way the world seems to descend in a torrent from the grey skies. He'd felt it as he had watched Mary bleed out. 

He just doesn't wish for Molly to fade, too. John doesn't want to fathom how many people it would hurt. How much it would blind Sherlock for as long as he lives. He doesn't want to think about the compassionate soul that Molly is being taken from the world.

So, he doesn't, and instead closes his eyes and leans against the railings, too. Sherlock and John allow the night to enclose around them as their minds run wild with too many searing emotions, lips tight for fear of letting go.

It's not that John is afraid or in any way hesitant to show his sadness or trepidation, but he cannot help but wonder what it would do to Sherlock if he dared to open his mouth right now. He at least imagines that the detective would collapse to the ground in a numb heap with only the rain to remind him that he is still awake. 

John watches Sherlock tremble violently and, as he keeps a hand on his shoulder, he lets his mind think about deep roots and nonexistent whispers of affection that had caused this friction of silence and unknowing between his two friends. 

The streetlights line the streets in rows, letting every corner of every alley and every window glint a little in the dark shadows of another November night. The rain stutters like white noise, graciously leaving lines of lucidity and innocence on each man's coats. It pools quietly, leaving a glossy finish to the tarmac ground that had been abraded by inexhaustible footsteps.

Dampened grey hair receives a tense hand through it as John draws back from the railings. He turns to face Sherlock whose lips have stopped quivering, but whose eyes continue to water. 

"Sherlock, you…" John murmurs, seemingly unsure how to force the words from his tongue, "...you didn't realise until she was shot, did you?"

Sherlock's hands grip onto the railings again and he bows his head. A defeated sigh sounds from his tired lungs and there's a feeble shrug of his shoulders. "I — No. I didn't."

A pause. The beat shatters Sherlock's heart.

"Did you tell her … anything?"

"I told her … a lot, actually," Sherlock replies, his eyebrow raising in what seems like a thoughtful reminiscence. "I told her that she's always mattered, and that I've always relied on her. I even went so far as to tell her that … " 

His features darken and still altogether.

"I told her that she'd be okay."

John swallows the heavy lump in his throat and decides to redirect Sherlock's mind from that sore possibility. He steps forward and there's a slow blink of his eyes.

"But did you tell her, Sherlock? Did you tell her that you love her?" 

Sherlock's voice breaks into something akin to a broken and hoarse sob as he mutters the words: "She didn't hear me, John. The paramedics took her. I said it and then I—I fell to the ground."

John encloses his hand around Sherlock's upper arm. He dips his head for a second to let the weight of his friend's words traverse through his cloudy mind. A moment later, he brings his head back up and sighs softly.

"So why are you denying it?" 

Another wave of teary despair inundates Sherlock's eyes. "I can't love her, John. It got her shot." 

"No, it didn't—"

"She overheard you and Mycroft and took it upon herself to come after me."

"I know." He heaves a heavy sigh and rubs at his forehead. "But, mate, Molly's always going to go after you. And you'll always dive headfirst into danger if she needs you to save her. It's just what happens and the quicker you bloody accept that, the better."

"No. I can't live with that. It's too hazardous."

"Alright," John mumbles, boots splashing quietly on the ground as he takes another step towards Sherlock. "When Molly wakes up — and she _will_ wake up — how do you think she's going to feel?" 

Sherlock's whisper falls beneath the palpitating heavyweight of his mind. His eyes glaze over as he stares into the distance. "You saw the injuries, Doctor Watson—"

"Dammit, Sherlock!" John hisses. "Bloody answer me, will you?" 

Sherlock sighs. "I don't know how she'll feel, John. That's not my strong point." 

"Then make it so,'cause she's going to need you to."

Sherlock runs a hand through his moistened curls and turns back to the railing, a million thoughts swirling in his mind. He closes his eyes and tries to think, but the mental and physical lassitude caused by the trauma and worry has rendered his mind helpless to any sort of reasoning. 

"Sherlock, how do people feel when they're in danger? How do people feel when they've woken in a hospital bed, with tubes and wires everywhere, and their last memory is dying in pain?"

"Scared."

John nods slowly and his eyes are dark.

"How do people feel when they've got all these weird and wonderful affections running around in their head, when they're terrified that it will be unrequited? But they're also terrified that they won't ever see that person again?" 

The words that tumble from Sherlock's tremoring and freezing lips cause John to step backwards.

"It makes them human, John," comes the mumble. "Affection is human, and being human is dangerous." 

"Er, yes. And what else is it?" 

"It's me. It's Molly. It's you and Mary."

"Yeah. Affection is many things, Sherlock. It isn't just danger."

Many things happen in the space of the next few minutes: John gets a call from Mrs Hudson that calls him home to Rosie, the rain pelts down more violently than it did before, and the surgeon finds Sherlock standing alone in the rain looking as if he is about to fall to pieces. 

The news that tumbles from the surgeon's mouth is enough to let Sherlock collapse to the cold ground in a heap, his heart not knowing which way to resonate.

_______________

Every word from Sherlock's conversation with John echoes around his head as he is led along the corridor. He had insisted that he could find his own way, but the heaviness of his limbs and the ache of his head seem thankful for the guidance. He feels as if he is wading through an unrelenting cloud of mist, all whilst a bright light is scalding his eyes like a laser.

Sherlock really hates hospitals.

All he can smell is the dried blood on his shirt and the overwhelming odour of chemicals and disinfectant. It burns his nose and he claps a hand over his face, either to cease another sob or to get rid of the smell. Or both.

"Now, Mr Holmes, I want to remind you that whilst she did pull through, there was a lot of internal bleeding and it was touch and go towards the end. Her road to recovery is going to be a rather long one, I'm afraid."

Sherlock can only bring himself to nod. Everything is numb and all he wants to do is see for himself that Molly is still breathing. He could be in some kind of warped dream state for all he knows and he wants to make sure that Molly really did make it. That his mind isn't playing fiendish tricks on him. 

As his sodden feet trail into the ITU, the consistent beeps and the soft _whoosh_ of the ventilator are muffled in his ears. A sharp inhalation impacts his throat and a small _'Oh'_ breaks from it in a whisper; he regards the wires that surround Molly and Sherlock has no idea where they start and where they end. There's an oxygen tube in her mouth. Her pale eyelids are closed and her hair cascades past one side of her shoulders, lighter brown highlights in it being picked up by the glow of the ceiling light. 

Sherlock cannot fathom how one can look so very graciously prepossessing and peaceful at once.

"She'll be on a ventilator and regular doses of morphine for a while, but she should make a full recovery. However, even once she is discharged, she'll need someone to stay with her until her recovery is indefinite. Now, there's no family listed in her files and there is no next of kin—"

"I'll do it. I'll take her home."

That whisper is the only thing that makes sense to the enervation in Sherlock's mind. He stumbles onto a nearby chair and can't take his stingy eyes off Molly's drowsy form.

But then a small smile of relief twitches warmly at his calloused mouth. 

She is alive, and she's coming home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a third & final chapter coming :)


End file.
